IPCC report: Newspapers’ sober assessment of the science absent

Editorial and opinion pieces in newspapers following the release of the latest IPCC report reflect the political leaning of the newspaper, rather objective analysis. James Painter reports following a study of the world’s newspapers. Poles Apart: the international reporting of climate scepticism concludes that climate scepticism is largely an Anglo-Saxon phenomenon, found most frequently in the US and British newspapers. It explores the reasons why this is so. The study also examines whether climate sceptics are more likely to appear in right-leaning than left-leaning newspapers, and in which parts of a newspaper their voices are most heard.

Transcript

Robyn Williams: This is The Science Show on RN.

So now the latest climate report is released. What do we make of it? James Painter has done two books based on studies at the Reuter Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford. The latest was out last month. He looks at two key issues that have already emerged.

James Painter: So the latest blockbuster report by the IPCC is out, and media organisations around the world have been carefully pouring over the latest findings about climate change. Or have they? A glance at some of the editorials and opinion pieces in the UK newspapers suggests that all too often what matters is not the science, but the dominant political leaning of the owner or editors.

For example, an editorial in the left-leaning Guardian highlighted the credibility of the report, emphasising the 95% probability that carbon emissions account for at least half of the observed increase in global warming since 1951.

In contrast, the right-leaning tabloid Daily Mail in its reaction focused on what it called the 'extraordinary admission' by the IPCC that temperatures have barely risen since 1998. It called for a similar 15-year pause in paying what it called 'ludicrous green taxes'.

The Australian recently reproduced the essence of another Daily Mail article alleging the IPCC had dramatically revised downwards the rate of global warming over the past 60 years. The paper was forced to issue a correction.

It's a similar story in the USA where the right-leaning Wall Street Journal often gives voice to climate sceptics, whereas the left-leaning or liberal New York Times rarely does, but sticks to the mainstream consensus on the science.

All this is distressing for those scientists who want to see a sober assessment of the science, without it being interpreted through the prism of political preferences. The science often only gets a 'walk-on' role. The climate sceptic opinion writers often focus on the uncertainties around the climate science. These are inevitable given the hugely complex climate system and the difficulties of making accurate projections of likely scenarios.

In a study the Reuters Institute published in September, we found that journalists follow the prompts from the scientists in reporting all the uncertainties. Indeed, around 80% of the articles contained some sort of uncertainty, and around half contained a quote from a scientist indicating some uncertain aspect of the science.

What was also interesting was that Australia had the most articles, and the highest percentage of articles with sceptics in them, ahead of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Norway and India. This finding tallied with a previous report we had published which strongly suggested that climate scepticism was common in the English-speaking media in countries like the UK, USA and Australia. It is nothing like as common in the media in developing countries, such as Brazil, India and China, and in France.

Critics of the sceptics say that one of their main aims is merely to spread doubt about the science. This can lead to policy makers calling for more certainty before taking action, and to the general public being confused. One of the problems with uncertainty is that many readers and listeners probably don't understand fully that uncertainty is a key element of many areas of science. They often think scientists should 'know' things, and confuse their uncertainty with ignorance.

Several experts have suggested that risk language and concepts can be a more helpful way of presenting the information, particularly to policy makers who are very aware of weighing up the costs and benefits of different actions (including doing nothing). The classic example of this is from the insurance world. Most people take out house insurance against low probability, high risk events like your house burning down.

And a recent report by risk experts showed that the sort of risk implied by high levels of warming would not be tolerated in other fields. They suggested that an equivalent level of risk—a 2% chance of a 6-degree temperature rise—would equate to around 500,000 fatal plane crashes.

Investors constantly used a language of risk, and one top British banker reacted to the latest IPCC report by describing climate change essentially as an issue of strategic risk management. By continuing to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, he said, 'we are putting the weather on steroids'.

Lord Stern, author of the famous 2006 report on the economics of climate change, is an admirer of risk language. He likes to ask whether the world wants to play Russian roulette with one bullet or two. And he argues that sceptics have to show they have high confidence the planet is going to experience only the lower end of possible temperature increases for them to make their case against not tackling climate risks.

Communicating effectively around climate change is a fiendishly difficult challenge. Risk language is not a panacea, but it may help. After all, climate models can now evaluate how much man-made climate change may have made an extreme weather event like a severe flood more likely. Such risk assessments usually include probability levels, and what degree of confidence scientists have in their findings. We are all going to have to get better at understanding them.

Robyn Williams: James Painter is head of the journalism fellowship program at the Reuters Institute in Oxford. His latest book, published last month, is Climate Change in the Media: Reporting Risk and Uncertainty.

Guests

James Painter

Head Journalism Fellowship ProgrammeReuters Institute for the Study of JournalismUniversity of OxfordOxford UK

Credits

Comments (11)

crank :

05 Oct 2013 1:40:18pm

The reasons that the situation is so bad in Australia are plain to see. The Right is totally dominant, the ALP having long sold out to the business rulers of society and the LNP migrating ever further Right in consequence. The MSM is entirely Rightwing, with the News Corpse apparat and the Fin Review ferociously denialist. The rest of the MSM, including the thoroughly Howardised ABC, practises a 'false equivalence' between science and lies and deliberate distortions, a balance that it never displays in other fields where the usual uniformity of opinion and Groupthink rule. With total Rightwing dominance of business, politics and the MSM, anthropogenic climate destabilisation denial (and denial of every other ecological catastrophe) is inevitable. Denialism is almost entirely Rightwing, and it reflects Rightwing psychopathology. It displays utter lack of human empathy and indifference to the suffering of others by ensuring a climatic catastrophe that will kill billions. It reflects the massive egomania of the Rightwing Dunning-Krugerite who rejects science in favour of his own ideological fanaticism. It is unscrupulous in its relentless lying, misrepresentation, confusion-spreading and the repeated dissemination of the untruths even after they have long been refuted over and over again. And, more than any other motivation, it is simple greed that drives the denialist industry and its deranged acolytes. Fossil fuels represent tens of trillions in wealth and consequent power. There is simply no way that the ruling global Rightwing elites will sacrifice this wealth and power merely to save the lives of billions of 'useless eaters', 'bludgers' and 'moochers' who they fear and hate, in the 'never-never land' of the future after the denialists' own deaths. Even the fate of their own issue is of no interest to them, but that can hardly come as a surprise to any student of Rightwing psychology.

Emilie :

Gederts Skerstens :

06 Oct 2013 5:28:40pm

Lord, what standard ABC Leftist Junk. The physical properties of Carbon Dioxide don't vary through political influences. The response to the associated myths about the properties do. There's no variation in the reports on the effects of Gravity in Right or Left media. Anyone falling from the roof gets killed. All agree. The very fact that there's a different take on Climatism between political viewers puts that stuff in a different category to Gravity. It doesn't deal with Physics but with agendas.

crank :

08 Oct 2013 4:27:50pm

Gold medal stuff, for both projection and hypocrisy. It is the Right, and the Right alone, that have politicised the science, by simply denying it. The Left, the Centre and the un-deranged elements of the Right (a tiny coterie, to be sure) simply accept what the science has long unequivocally said. They do not distort, misrepresent or lie about it, although an occasional error has occurred, all immediately corrected, in the scientific tradition of scepticism and falsifiability of theories. The Right, on the other hand, constantly lie, and repeat the lies, misrepresent and repeat the misrepresentations and distort, confuse and befuddle without conscience or scruple, as here. The last, is, of course, a redundancy when speaking of the Right.

Ron Mader :

07 Oct 2013 11:13:55am

As always, a brilliant feature. Thank you IPCC for your blockbuster report, but we need more social web interaction. ABC Science Show, could you create some interactive feature or create a wiki about climate change?

What's missing is a media analysis of the IPCC itself. Certainly, they can do a better job of communicating their report. Kudos that they provided livestreaming of a press conference. Fail to the fact that those on screen were all white males and knackered to the bone. They were so pleased that they were able to announce the report that they forgot the social niceties of interacting on the social web.

Reader :

02 Nov 2013 11:53:39pm

If you want serious media coverage of the IPCC itself you should read Donna Laframboise's "The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken For The World's Top Climate Expert". V. cheap on Kindle. Amazon reviews overwhelmingly favourable apart from the odd interested party who hadn't read the book.

Grey Nomad :

25 Oct 2013 10:59:43pm

All this meanings rhetoric and no information. Of course Climate is "real". The human contribution is infintessible. CO2 is agreenhouse gas but its attributes taper off logarithmically and the sum isn't going to put out more light just because we emit more. Indeed it is beaming out somewhat less. We look to be set for lower trends - the Landzcheidt minimum - dare not speak thy name on your ABC. Interesting how after sling the banks and telecommunications the govt still won't sell it's media company. Silly me, all those government scientists doing their masters bidding must be right.

Grey Beard :

Grey Nomad :

03 Nov 2013 9:05:56am

Not all bankers and ABC presenters sing from the same hymn book. Here's David Murray on late line being interviewed about AGW; "When I see some evidence of integrity amongst the scientists themselves. I often look at systems and behaviours as a way of judging something, and in this case, to watch the accusations that fly between these people suggests there's been a breakdown in integrity in the science"

crank :

09 Nov 2013 7:55:16am

Grey Nomad-have you heard of the Dunning-Kruger phenomenon? It is, if I may paraphrase, that tragi-comic situation where an individual is so dumb, and ignorant, that they are not equipped to realise how stupid and ill-informed they are, and, being universally of the Right and therefore massively egomaniacal, therefore confidently assume that they are geniuses. It makes them the meat and milk of the cynical disinformers of the denialist industry, and they proliferate around the Boltosphere and other circles of moral Hell.

Loss Assessor :

03 Nov 2013 12:08:27am

I'm normally quite happy that I get value for my insurance premiums but not when a lot of clowns don't invest them wisely but blow them on mandating windfarms and unnecesarily expensive power which costs jobs and closes trade exposed businesses.